A Burning Glimpse
by Barsonia
Summary: Brainy has long had a deep obsession with Helga Pataki. However, on this particular day he's started to think: How can he take his mind off his love? Lila Sawyer has an unrelated but equally pressing question that's led her to cross the same path as Brainy. Perhaps the two can solve their newfound questions together?


**Author's Note: I noticed this is a semi-popular ship and I simply had to get on board with the fun. And I apologize for any typos; I was so excited to post this that I didn't do as much editing as I probably should have.**

 **Enjoy!**

...

Every time Brainy looked at her, he had to sigh. Well, more _wheeze_ than sigh and it was mostly an issue with his asthma, but the point stood! He was madly in love with her and she hadn't the faintest idea what she did to him.

Helga G. Pataki. Her golden flames of hair and bright, faintly ironic, and mostly pink outfit could make him fall in love with a mere grainy picture of her. And instead, here he was, blessed with her visage in the flesh.

She was walking down the lunch line a couple dozen feet away from him with that perpetual grimace plastered on her face, accentuated by her glaring unibrow.

He watched intently as she moved down the line; he sat at his table alone, too enraptured to be bothered by nonsense like eating.

Her stance was a paradox, in that her warrior-like stubbornness rooted her feet solidly to the Earth and yet, in his mind, she was floating above it like an angel. An angry, bitter angel with a heart of many untold secrets.

One such secret was approaching now. Watching Helga's face soften considerably and her eyes light up, Brainy followed her gaze to the entrance of the cafeteria and, in the bustling of students, made out the object of her affection.

It was his turn to grimace. _Arnold Shortman,_ he thought to himself with a venomous tone ringing discordantly from the name. The bright-eyed youth with the oddly shaped head and kind facial features was entering the cafeteria, laughing and talking with his best friend, Gerald.

Arnold was all that stood in Brainy's way of his true love and was every reason that he knew he couldn't be with her. She loved the boy almost as much as Brainy loved her.

Brainy simply valued her happiness far too greatly to ever seriously jeopardize what she might find with Arnold. He turned back to Helga and saw her daydreaming with that passionate, stricken look dancing in her eyes and on her face.

Expending more energy than he ever had in his life, Brainy forced his eyes off his obsession. A black cloud hung over his heart and he had to admit to himself that he wasn't strong enough to work past the pain and continue watching her.

And he was nowhere near strong enough to glide behind her and listen to yet another one of her honeyed soliloquies about her raging love for the football-boy. Not today. Today he had to admit to himself that he couldn't _bear_ the sight and sound of it.

And with that thought, something finally clicked inside Brainy's conflicted brain. Call it an epiphany or call it common sense, but for the first time in his life, he realized something had to change.

He couldn't keep focusing his attention on Helga if he ever hoped to _be_ loved himself. That would require him finding someone else.

But as his eyes darted carelessly around the large cafeteria at all the loud and fearsome students, one single question loomed in his mind: Who? That is, who could possibly fill the massive shoes that he had carefully and delicately spent years crafting for Helga?

And as his slovenly gaze made its way around the building, it suddenly came into contact with another pair of eyes. A pair of eyes belonging to someone that he had never really thought twice about.

Lila Sawyer.

…

As Lila nibbled on her sandwich on this ever so lovely of days, she couldn't help but let out a small sigh. Looking around, she noticed that she was sitting at her table all by herself; she must have sensed that she was in a strange mood and it was best not to bother others with it.

But though she was oh so certain something was wrong, she couldn't put her finger on it!

She'd had a great morning and so far her day at school had been positively delightful. So why was she so…melancholy?

A thought suddenly occurred to her: It had been ever so long since she'd tried to hang out with or go on a date with a boy in a romantic fashion. Could that be the source of her feelings?

In a very uncharacteristic fashion for her, she slumped somewhat in her seat with an oh so solemn expression on her face. Why was it so difficult for her to find a special someone to connect with? Was the whole idea too naïve?

Was she better off simply forgetting the whole thing and just finding some random boy to go on a date with?

Even if she did decide to do something ever so careless like that, who would she even pick?

Her eyes scanned the room curiously. What boy would she ask out? She certainly didn't _like_ like any of them, but she did _like_ plenty of them. The best place to start would be with one of _those_ boys.

And then her gaze suddenly fixated on a pair of eyes framed in glasses, all the way on the other side of the cafeteria. Those eyes belonged to Brainy and he was evidently also focusing on hers.

Lila was conflicted. On the one hand, she knew staring was ever so impolite and that the proper thing to do would be to simply look away or else give a small wave and then look away.

But something kept her eyes on Brainy's and he must've felt the same way, for he didn't even blink. She was magnetically drawn to his gaze with hers and it was almost as if they were silently communicating on a deeper level.

Truth be told, Lila had never before really paid any attention to Brainy. He seemed nice enough, but he was extremely taciturn and mostly kept to himself.

Except for a few instances where he surprised the other kids by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he essentially just faded into the background. Lila didn't even know his full name!

But in that moment, she was oh so certain that none of that mattered. His intense eyes matched her gaze through his glasses and she saw a depth and life in them that she had seldom seen before.

She had no idea how Brainy felt about her (in fact, she was quite certain that she had seen him stalking after Helga once or twice), but that didn't matter in this moment. All she knew was that his eyes expressed a kindness, a quiet yet fierce intelligence, and a keen interest in _her._

Lila had never discovered something so deep about herself this quickly before, but it dawned on her in a flash of light: She liked Brainy. She _liked_ him liked him.

…

Brainy found so much meaningful information in Lila's eyes. It sounded crazy, he knew, but he found her gaze to be almost intoxicating in its sheer power. There was a boundless love, a deep sensitivity, and an extraordinary amount of wisdom to be found in her stare.

Feelings he'd thought he could only have ever possibly felt for one girl before suddenly rushed into his heart and then back out to his bloodstream.

This girl was the one he was looking for. The one who could replace—no, the one who could _exceed_ his love for Helga. And so, almost automatically, he founded himself getting to his feet and walking across the cafeteria.

The whole world seemed to disappear around him as Brainy moved closer and closer to Lila. Her face appeared to brighten enormously as he approached her table and before long, he was only a few feet from her.

He stopped and looked at her quietly, his heart racing and his skin going pale. Well, paler than usual. For a second, the only noise he could hear was his own heavy, struggling breath.

"Hello, Brainy," Lila said with her singsong voice and with a big smile on her face.

He took a deep breath, coughed a little, took _another_ deep breath, and forced out the words: "Umm…hi."

Lila lightly giggled at his response, covering her mouth with her hand.

 _Oh God,_ Brainy thought as he started to panic. _This whole thing was a huge mistake._

"Would you like to sit by me," Lila asked softly, a slight hint of nervousness shining through. "I'm ever so positive that I would enjoy that a lot."

And with that, a massive, wild grin began to form on Brainy's face.

 **The End**


End file.
